Smoke and candles
by Sky Samuelle
Summary: Part of the Season Six Arc. It takes before Not Too Late To Live Again, explaining the initial edge between Nikita and Walter.


SMOKE AND CANDLES  
  
''are you locked up in you counting the days  
  
oh how long until you have your freedom  
  
just shake because you love  
  
cry because you care  
  
feel 'cause you're alive  
  
sleep because you're tired  
  
shake because you love  
  
bleed 'cause you got hurt  
  
die because you lived''  
  
From Heaven Out Of Hell by Elisa  
  
''Love me when I deserve it the least, because that is when I will need it the most'' - Anonymous  
  
* * * *  
  
He came from Oversight with lonely black eyes and a grim, easy smile upon his lips.  
  
He didn't know that since his first step into my domain, I had already signed his death warrant.  
  
Walter called me names because I made him lose himself inside me. I'm everything Walter accused me of being.  
  
I know how it feels to be alone in a room full of people.  
  
I know how it feels to always be second best, the second choice. How it feels to be a mistake anywhere outside Section.  
  
I used it to my advantage.  
  
I step past the threshold and I'm alone.  
  
Finally. Unequivocally. Inevitably. "Alone."  
  
Here in the dark, I can abandon the mechanical, self-assured elegance of my stride, along with the fluid severity of my posture.  
  
Here, in my private quarters, I can put Operations to sleep and allow my feelings to show, because I *do* feel, in spite of what others may think.  
  
Here I'm alone and I'm only Nikita; a woman cursed by her beauty, by her power, by her goddamned talent to pretend she doesn't know what's happening around her.  
  
It was a fortunate and necessary talent when I was growing up surrounded by Bobbie and her ill-breathing boyfriends. Still, for all it spared me then, I now wish I had never possessed it.  
  
I sat before my laptop before his arrival and profiled how to use Liam to get the fucking files.  
  
All the while knowing Liam would die so I could acquire more power. For the greater good.  
  
I made him fall for me so hard that he held my happiness in such high regard and had enough faith in me to compel him to help me even if it meant betraying Oversight and sacrificing his life.  
  
Liam loved me like I love Michael. It was tangible in how he looked at me when he thought I didn't notice, in the attention he paid to the details.  
  
God knows if he ever had doubts about my sincerity. He was not a stupid man; but if you want it badly enough, you can persuade yourself that your special someone loves you back, even as every cell in your brain screams bloody murder. His arms careful around my waist and his button nose in my hair are no more.  
  
He'll never know he made me feel female and warm again.  
  
The sad thing is that I know that if I could turn back time, I would take this exact course of action. I know it was the right thing to do, even as my world constricts with grief for someone I allowed myself the indulgence to care for.  
  
Since he entered Section One, he was lost because he needed me to love him, like I need Michael to love me. Maybe Michael still does. Yet, he isn't here to warm this silent and cold heart.  
  
Liam made me feel warm, loveable.  
  
A part of me rejoiced in the charade I put up for him, in having him wholly enamored with me. In being his first choice. How badly the job has twisted me!  
  
This job is my life, with its charge of dreams, hopes, and pain .  
  
I am Section and Section is me. Liam made me remember how it was to live differently, gave me an interlude from reality which I'm sorry to have to let go.  
  
An interlude, not reality. Never reality. Like a mirage you can admire from a distance, but which disappears when you get close enough to touch it.  
  
Although what we had was an illusion, one that I created, his absence affects me and I realize too late the extent to which I benefited from his affection.  
  
Sacrificing him, I sacrificed myself also.  
  
''I don't know what I'm looking at,'' Walter said to me, disgusted by what I had done. He didn't recognize me as the girl he'd watched growing up within this hell. His words only affected me partially. I gave up defending myself from his accusations awhile back. Operatives seem to need to think someone is to blame for the actions Section commits, and she who has command takes final responsibility. Never mind, that I'm trying to save their asses and the asses of their successors. I never expected thank you's for holding the world together.  
  
There's more to me than what they like to see, more than just Operations.  
  
Liam loved it and was lost because of it.  
  
But we are all lost here.  
  
Section One got the Red Files, Walter resents me and will do so for God- only-knows-how-long, Liam is gone, I have no intention to start to wonder about Michael.  
  
Instead, I'm here with many days like this one ahead and nothing in my hands.  
  
It's with resignation I light up a few candles, anxious to smell vanilla and orange.  
  
As if their scent could fill the void inside my soul, but it isn't possible.  
  
A faint smile captures my dry lips as I remember one birthday, when a man I truly loved lit up my bedroom with many, many perfumed candles and made love with me in my bed many, many times.  
  
It feels like yesterday, but it's just another lost treasure.  
  
I close my eyes and curl up on my bed, gripping the knowledge I once lived, loved and had happier days, and nothing can erase that.  
  
Like Adrian, I too have a safe garden. 


End file.
